55 Adobe Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials

Every graphic designer will end up, at some point, with a client who needs an icon designed. Going into the project, your first idea would be to use your experience, training and creativity and dive straight into the project gung-ho. In some occasions, doing this could be disastrous. Ideally, you should learn the basic principles of icon design first, the importance and functions of icons on web sites and in user interfaces, the difference between icon and logo designs, and most importantly, how to use your imagination and creativity to reflect the characteristics of the icon effectively.

In this article we have compiled a comprehensive list of Adobe Illustrator icon tutorials, the graphic editor of choice for many graphic designers. The tutorials range from the basic, for anyone taking their first steps with Illustrator, to using advanced techniques for professional and advanced designers.

Adobe Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials

How to Create a Yellow Submarine Icon with Gradient Meshes
“While spaceships, rockets and UFOs are all the rage in the icon world these days, submarines have been inexcusably neglected. Let’s correct this situation immediately by drawing a fun submarine using gradient meshes, pattern brushes, opacity masks and blending modes.”

Icon Design Tutorial: Drawing A Pencil Icon
This tutorial presents some good design practices that will help you master icon design. It will help you, particularly if you have just started to learn, or want to learn more about icon design in Illustrator.

How to Create a Magic Wand Icon
This tutorial will utilize gradient feathering and some simple shapes. These techniques are easily translated to other icons, illustrations, and logos.

Vector Film Slate Icon
The tutorial uses some basic shapes, some gradients, and even a blend, to create this marvellous Film Slate icon.

Shiny, Vector Dice
In this tutorial, you will learn to create a set of vector dice using Illustrator and the tricky and underused Gradient Mesh Tool.

Vector Safari Compass
Use this Adobe Illustrator tutorial to draw up your own vector Safari inspired compass in Adobe Illustrator, and icon that works well in small formats while also displaying quite a lot of intricate details when viewed in large format.

iTune Icon
The challange of this tutorial is to use various Blending modes and blending techniques to replicate the iTune icon, it is a good exercise to help you master your Blend techniques.

Gearbox Settings Icon
Utilizing only simple, predefined shapes, as well as tools like the Pathfinder and transformations, entire illustrations can be created from scratch. In this tutorial, we’ll create an icon suitable for portraying options, settings, preferences, etc., similar to OS X’s system preferences icon.

Tropical Colored Compass
In this tutorial you’ll be creating a stylized Vector Compass Icon Design, applying some modern Web 2.0 effects and bright colors you will bring this icon to life.

Hourglass Icon
With simple shapes, gradients, and vector textures, this simple tutorial will show beginning illustrators how to create an hourglass icon.

Adobe Bridge Icon
This tutorial will show you how to replicate the Adobe Bridge icon in Illustrator CS2.

Magic Hat Icon
For this tutorial you will use the pen tool, pathfinder palette, and other tools to create this magic hat icon with a cute bunny inside.

Vector Smiley Icon
You will use some basic Illustrator tecniques to create this happy Smiley icon.

Magnify Zoom Icon
You’ll work primarily with the pathfinder and basic shape tools to cut out the shapes for this illustration, though the pen tool will also be used, and color the elements using various gradients.

Vector Military Cap Icon
In this advanced tutorial, you will learn how to create a realistic military style cap icon using gradients, blends, and the Gradient Mesh Tool, and using a photo reference to base this illustration on.

Transparent Battery Icon
In this tutorial, you’ll create a detailed icon of a battery similar to the one used for the iPhone touch. The battery “fuel” color can be changed as well as the “fuel” level, allowing the icon to be used to create a battery or power meter for applications

3D Vector Film Roll Icon
In this tutorial, you will learn how to draw a realistic film roll, drawn in perspective, using the Pen Tool, Ellipses and Gradients.

Stylized GPS Icon
In this beginner/intermediate Illustrator tutorial, you will learn how to create a stylized GPS icon using simple shapes and gradients.

Television Icon
In this easy to follow step by step tutorial, you will be shown how to create this cool retro television icon, by using some basic shapes and gradients.

Textured Journal Icon
In this tutorial, you will create a textured, rather than glossy, textured Journal icon.

Designing a Stumbleupon Icon
In this tutorial you will cover the basics that will give you an idea how the icon is rendered, you will learn how they appear in smaller sizes and the constraints you can find when using Vector (Illustrator) instead of Pixel (Photoshop) based image software. Great starter tutorial.

Alarm Clock Icon
With simple shapes and gradients, this easy to follow tutorial will show you how to create an alarm clock icon.

Calendar Icon
A great tutorial explaining the full process of designing an icon, from an initial hand drawn illustration, to using Illustrator to flesh out the glossy and modern icon.

Envelpe Icon with a Satin Feel
In this tutorial, you will be shown how to create a simple envelope/mail icon, using the basic tools of illustrator , ie gradient , rectangle and pathfinder.

Drawing A Pencil Icon
This tutorial is very detailed and in-depth, and it explains the process of designing a simple pencil icon.

Administrator Icon
In this tutorial you will create an administrator icon with a Clean Web 2.0 style.

3d Isometric Vector Icon
Three dimensional shapes are less complicated to create in Illustrator than you may think. The 3D Extrude and Bevel effect can be used to create interesting designs. In this tutorial you’ll learn how.

This is fabulous! I’ve been using PhotoShop for years but am only just getting into the swing of Illustrator. There are some great tutorials listed for beginners – its just what I need to get myself started. Thanks for compiling such a well rounded list :-)

I think one of the most interesting and challenging aspects of icon design is to create versions of the icon at different sizes. That usually requires recreating the icon at progressively smaller sizes with simplified content (and an awareness of where exactly lines and shapes fall on the available pixels within a design).

Some of the presented icons seem incredibly elaborate and are perhaps not intended to be used as 32×32 icons, etc?

Thanks for sharing these helpful tutorials with us. I am a beginning web designer and that’s why I find all of them very useful for myself. Hope that they will make a huge contribution to my studying process. Good job, thanks.

Hey, does anyone know where i can find an illustrator tutorial to make a color swatch (similar to the kind you would find in a paint store). I have seen it before, but I can’t find it again for the life of me!